Tina H. Surh

Tina Surh is a private investor. She recently concluded her tenure as Chief Investment Officer of New York University at the end of 2014. NYU is the largest private university in the U.S. In that role she was responsible for the design and implementation of investment policy and strategy for NYU’s $3.5 billion endowment – a globally diversified, actively managed portfolio with a substantial proportion of alternative investments.

After ten years of service to NYU, five of them as CIO, Surh is credited with transforming the investment portfolio, building the investment function from the ground up, driving substantial development across all aspects of endowment management, and establishing a strong platform for the fund’s future growth. Her selection decisions and emphasis on value and asymmetric risk/reward produced results that both significantly exceeded the fund’s policy benchmark returns while at the same time incurring significantly less risk than the benchmark.

Previously, Surh was a private equity investor and a strategy consultant, beginning her career at Bain & Company. She was elected to the Tufts University Board of Trustees in 2010. She also currently serves on the Investment Committee for the Salvation Army, the Board of Advisors for the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, and several investment firm/organization advisory boards. Prior advisor roles include the Sesame Workshop Investment Committee.

Ms. Surh has been recognized by the publishers of Institutional Investor News as a “Rising Star of Foundations and Endowments” and was honored by the publishers of Hedge Funds Review for “Outstanding Contribution to the Industry by an Institutional Investor”.

Ms. Surh graduated cum laude from Tufts University where she studied drama, design and economics and earned her MBA from Harvard Business School. While a student at Tufts, she was an active costume designer for Arena Theater stage productions, vocalist with the Jackson Jills, campus tour guide and beneficiary of the financial aid program.

Born in Europe as a Korean citizen, and having lived on both US coasts, she enjoys residing in multi-cultural Brooklyn with her husband and their three children.